


Seven-High

by Marauder_the_Slash_Nymph



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types
Genre: 1988, Elio's not actually in this fic, England - Freeform, M/M, Oxford, Poker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 18:34:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15540444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marauder_the_Slash_Nymph/pseuds/Marauder_the_Slash_Nymph
Summary: Oliver, divorced and teaching at Oxford, has a very important reason to win a poker game. Movie-verse.





	Seven-High

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a little thing I thought up while trying to work on another fic in my 2004 series; for anyone who's read those, this is in a different universe. I've never played poker, so please tell me if I screwed anything up.

**University of Oxford, Spring 1988**

Oliver’s played poker in Westingham, Connecticut, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. He’s played with PhD. students in New York and old men in Crema. But this is his first time playing with undergrads in a ground-floor room in Trinity College. It’s probably bad form, to be playing with students he might easily teach again next year, but right now he doesn’t care.

He got divorced sixteen months ago, and the judge, noting that Pam dropped out of her master’s program to move to New York and marry Oliver, ruled that Oliver owes her alimony for two years or until she graduates, whichever happens first. But Oliver is thinking of another graduation right now. It’s in New York in six days, and with all his income spent on alimony, his own living expenses, and what he still owes his attorney, he doesn’t have the money to fly out for it.

Unless he wins this game. And if he loses, the alimony payment will be late and he’ll probably be found in contempt of court.

Eamonn Burke stubs out his cigarette and puts down his cards. Nine of hearts, six of diamonds, six of clubs, three of spades, three of diamonds. Two pair.

James Robinson – cornsilk blond, former Etonian, tried to kiss Oliver after a night of drinking at the Eagle and Child – looks at Eamonn’s cards where they sit on the scuffed table. From outside come a chorus of drunken voices, shouting chants by the wall that separates Trinity from Balliol. “Sorry, Eamonn,” says James.

Ace of spades, king of spades, king of hearts, king of diamonds, four of clubs. Three of a kind. Oliver turns to look at Henry Illingham Jones.

Henry Illingham Jones is brilliant. Cunning would probably be more accurate. Oliver has met hundreds of very bright people, but Henry Illingham Jones is clearly a genius remarkable even among geniuses, and all at the age of nineteen. He hopes to go into politics someday, and if he doesn’t end up as Prime Minister, he’ll probably start a third world war.

“Go ahead, sir,” says Henry Illingham Jones.

Oliver shakes his head. “You first.”

Henry Illingham Jones may be brilliant, but if Oliver’s instincts are right, he’s got worthless cards.

Illingham Jones swears under his breath, and Oliver tries not to smile.

Ten of hearts, eight of diamonds, six of spades, two of hearts, two of clubs. One pair.

Oliver downs the rest of his whisky and sets his cards on the table.

“Seven of clubs,” James says. “Six of spades – "

“We can all bloody see it, Robinson,” Illingham Jones mutters.

“ – five of spades, four of hearts, three of hearts.”

Oliver’s done it. He’s won enough money to go to Elio’s graduation, and ironically enough he’s done it with a seven-high _straight_.


End file.
